Cycling News Extra for July 12, 2004

Eadie now hit with doping penalty - from 1999

Australian track sprinter Sean Eadie's Olympic ambitions are in tatters
this morning after he was served with an infraction notice for an alleged
breach of anti-doping policy relating to an alleged event back in 1999.

According to Cycling Australia (CA), the breach relates to a package
of 16 tablets containing Anterior Pituitary Peptides sent through the
mail in January 1999, addressed to Eadie and intercepted by the Australian
Customs Service.

Anterior Pituitary Peptides were and still are a prohibited substance
under the Anti-Doping Policies of both CA and the Australian Olympic Committee
(AOC), and the use or administration of APPs cannot be detected under
the current testing regime. To date, Eadie has not tested positive to
any banned substance.

The investigation by the Australian Customs Service began after the Australian
Sports Commission (ASC) and CA referred the case to them in March this
year on the recommendation of the Stanwix Report into allegations against
Mark French. "When more names were alleged, we then put them through the
same trawl - that's where this has came up from," said a spokesperson
for CA to Cyclingnews today. "But they [the Australian Customs
Service] didn't have the [other] names until the court case, which was
in June."

The infraction notice, which Eadie has 14 days to respond to, has placed
the rider's Olympic nomination in serious doubt. However, the spokesperson
from CA quoted an almost identical case relating to that of Australian
hammer throw champion Stuart Rendell one year ago, which saw Rendell take
his case to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS) and have the charges
against him dropped.

"You have to prove he ordered for it, paid for it, and intended to bring
it into the country," explained the CA spokesperson. "If he's found guilty,
he's definitely off the team."

Asked whether Eadie has stated his intention to lodge an appeal, the
CA spokesperson said: "We only issued the notice today, personally delivered
- he's probably still waiting to get the piece of paper in his hand."

Should Eadie be found guilty and have his position on the sprint team
for Athens revoked, Ben Kersten is next in line to take Eadie's place.
However, at this stage, the AOC has not endorsed any athlete on the Australian
cycling team nominated by Cycling Australia on July 2.

French saga rumbles on

The family of suspended Australian cyclist Mark French has written to
World Anti-Doping Agency head Dick Pound, claiming that French was not
given the chance to take legal advice before his initial interviews.

Nineteen-year-old French was banned from cycling for two years in June
for possession of Testicomp and equine growth hormone after empty vials
of the two products were found in his accommodation at the Australian
Institute of Sport facility in Adelaide. His admission to trafficking
in Testicomp resulted in the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) adding
a lifetime ban from the Olympics.

In his testimony to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, French named five
other riders as having used his room at the AIS to inject themselves.
A subsequent investigation by retired judge Robert Anderson concluded
that there was no evidence to support these allegations. However, the
Olympic team status of one of the five, sprinter Jobie Dajka, is still
in limbo until the AOC is satisfied he is not involved with the supply
of the used ampoules of equine growth hormone - among other injecting
paraphernalia - found in French's room at the Australian Insitutue of
Sport last December.

In an email to Pound from French's aunt, Lisa French, the rider's family
echoed Pound's recent call for the full transcripts of the investigation
to be released. "The public crucifixion of our son, brother and nephew,
Mark French, has been a crushing and salient lesson to us all that even
in a robust democracy the truth can sometimes have little currency," said
the email to Pound. "Your public statement calling for the public tabling
of transcripts mirrors our own hopes."

Excepts from the transcripts and reports have been leaked to various
media despite their being protected by privacy laws and containing evidence
that was given in-camera.

French is appealing against his suspension and Olympic life ban, saying
he did not receive legal advice before being interviewed during the original
investigation after used vials and needles were found in his room.

"Even Saddam Hussein was granted leave to seek legal representation at
his initial hearing," said Lisa French's email. "The gathering of the
so-called forensic evidence and the flagrant disregard for the protocols
and enforcement of forensic analysis borders on contempt and the drunkenness
of absolute power.

". . . Please, as WADA President and International Olympic Committee
member, demand that all the documents . . . be immediately released in
full to you, and in turn to the Australian public, so that we can determine
for ourselves whether justice has been done to Mark."

French's father David French has also called for the transcripts to be
released, accusing the Australian Sports Commission of "determined persistence
in keeping information from the public."

"We would welcome the full release of all documentation right from the
very start," said David French.